


Very slowly, lift (a single black tree)

by Irrelevancy



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, Jealousy, Leads to love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, Mutual Healing, Mutual Pining, Self-Worth Issues, Symbolism, Therapy, Threesome - M/M/M, Zoo, more analogies than you can shake a sloth at, nature metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 14:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20707235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: Thick glass and metal separated out the world from the sloths, and with it, Ace from the world; or, the melancholia!AU set in a zoo.





	Very slowly, lift (a single black tree)

**Author's Note:**

> Out of curiosity, I googled if hibiscus have a noticeable scent (not to humans), and then [Nari and I talked](https://authenticaussi3.tumblr.com/post/187730479430/authenticaussi3-zoo-au-where-ace-takes-care-of), and suddenly here's fic.
> 
> Title is from Rilke's poem ["Entrance"](http://www.picture-poems.com/rilke/images.html).

"Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

—Rainer Maria Rilke, _Letters to a Young Poet_

* * *

It's a quiet thing, working in the sloth habitat.

Thick glass and metal separated out the world from the sloths, and with it, Ace from the world. There was always a steady stream of work to be done, but nothing so pressing that staff members were constantly running in and out. The exhibit was tucked away in a fairly far-flung corner of the zoo as well. Ever since the senior technician Clover retired, Ace has been left pretty much on his own in the quiet. That quiet has been literally life-saving. Ace liked to remind himself of that, every time he fed and washed and exercised the sloths.

There were visitors of course. Ace was always more than happy to answer millions of questions from excited hoards of kids, and putting on the explainer's mic also meant putting on a smile. It wasn't fake, it was just... oversized. An awkward fit. He'd always try his best to mean them though, for the kids.

Thatch visited him the most regularly, because Thatch delivered the daily meals. Rather, he delivered the mix of vegetation that Ace was then to process, bunch up, and place strategically among the “trees” in the exhibit, along with a handful of vitamin-filled biscuits. It was a simple job that could've required zero conversation. Ace was mostly grateful that Thatch had always opted against zero conversation, but there were still hard days, where Ace had very few words left to spare, and Thatch had to be left out in the cold (proverbially speaking, of course; sloths were tropical animals and the whole building was temperature-controlled).

A nice guy, Thatch was. It was of course his job, but Ace was nonetheless grateful that he kept coming back, day after day, always with a smile for Ace.

It was Thatch who introduced Ace to Marco. One of the superstars of the zoo, Thatch had jokingly called Marco. A badass falconer.

_Technically Pell is the falconer_, Marco had explained, when he brought over what he called “an apology cake for dealing with my brother every day” at lunch. Ace had been so startled during that visit that he didn't even offer to let Marco in, just stood in the doorframe and accepted the cake. Marco never even said anything about it, just taught Ace a new word: _Austringer_. _German or something_, Marco had explained, scratching the back of his head. _Eagle wrangler. Bit pretentious now that I've said it out loud, isn't it yoi?_

When Marco started coming around for lunch a bit regularly, Ace asked him why.

_You're nice to be around_, Marco answered, after serious deliberation. _You're quiet, but you've got a steady presence. It's comforting._

_What, like the sloths?_ Ace had joked.

_Sure, but slightly faster, and with more toes._

Ace found Marco thoroughly charming, and quite came to enjoy their lunches.

One day, Marco knocked with bags under his eyes and no lunch bag.

_Didn't have time to pack any food this morning_, Marco intoned apologetically. _Actually, I think I should go. I'll be bad company today yoi._

Ace felt, viscerally and resonantly in his heart and soul, kinship with how utterly drained Marco sounded in that moment. He split his sprouts sandwich in two and handed over one perfect half.

_You can tell me about it if you want_.

Turned out, yesterday had been the anniversary of Marco's dad's death. It had been two years, Marco said. _You know I've had my arm gouged open by a golden eagle, almost lost the limb? The scars are awful, but still, that's nothing compared to—_

Marco was an openly emotional man, and wept right there in the middle of Ace's work space. Ace didn't stop him or encourage him, just slid the box of tissues closer to his elbow and got back to work. There was blood work to be done on a couple of rescued baby sloths, and he was also giving them their biweekly swim. So the sloths splashed in the pool and Marco cried by the sink. Ace stepped just outside to snip off two blooming hibiscus from the bush he tended by the service entrance.

_God, I'm so sorry,_ Marco said once Ace got back, voice raw and nasally. _What you must think of me, a grown man losing his shit in the middle of the workday because his dad died two years ago._

_You're fine. I don't really think anything_, Ace answered honestly. One of the babies seemed pretty done with the pool, and Ace carefully lifted him in a dry towel, feeding him a hibiscus as a reward. _I never met my dad. Or my mom. Just another way I'm like these sloths, I guess._

It was meant to make Marco laugh, but Marco only silently shuffled over. He sat right down on the floor beside the pool, red-rimmed eyes fixed on the baby sloth still breaststroking about. Ace watched as Marco unbuttoned and rolled up one flannel sleeve, revealing a forearm rippled with scars. He reached right down into the water with those scars, let the baby sloth dig in its claws, and gently lifted it out of the water.

Some gently painful feeling pinged in Ace's chest, and he started speaking before he realized what he was doing.

_But I did learn—I guess half a year ago now—that my biological mom recently passed away. Murdered. An FBI agent rolled right up to my lab at school, you know? Told me my mother's name, showed me her picture, said she had given me up for adoption to protect my life. My biological father was quite the wanted man, apparently. Organized crime stuff. He was dead before I was even born, and they caught up with my mom eventually. Guess she really did save my life._

It was Ace's first time telling anybody what had happened. His court-appointed therapist had known the messy details without him needing to explain it to her, and it seemed all-too-gruesome a story to tell at the company Christmas party. He didn't know why he was telling Marco all of it now, and felt immediately quite ashamed. He toweled the sloth off while it still hung from Marco's arms, refusing to meet Marco's eyes and cheeks red with embarrassment.

_So I really don't know how you feel. About your dad. Sorry._

That was what ended up, surprisingly, getting a laugh out of Marco.

_Don't be sorry yoi. Thank you. For telling me._

_It's no big deal_, Ace muttered, trying to convince himself that that was true. The first time he's ever put his “trauma” in his “own terms” (Dr. Olvia's words, not his) was to a crying man holding a baby sloth, a man he found uncomplicatedly attractive. No big deal at all.

_Makes me feel less alone._ The baby sloth finally unattached from Marco, luckily without any skin breakage. Marco smiled down at the critter swaddled in towels, standing awfully close to Ace. _Your sloths are really very cute. And kind. And good at listening._

_I— _Ace had a hard time finding his words, when Marco met and kept his gaze. He looked down, and fed the second hibiscus to the sloth instead. The blood red petals slowly disappeared between grinding teeth, and Ace carefully doesn't think about things like sacrifice or worth. _I wouldn't know anything about that._

* * *

He met Sabo on a Tuesday. It was raining.

Ace always got to work early, because there was little point lingering in the small, cold apartment he had to call home. That morning, he was among the first through the security gates, stepping through puddles on the cement, when he saw the figure running out the Reptile House without an umbrella. It had been a quiet, healing morning, even on the public transit over; Ace figured if the guy kept running, his and Ace's path would intersect, and then Ace would offer to share his umbrella to wherever the guy needed to go.

The guy however, stopped mid-sprint, and doubled back. Not to the Reptile House, or to an awning of any sort, but rather to a bush and a freshly planted tree. Ace watched as the guy, every inch of him well on the way to dripping wet at this point, squatted down and plucked something small and black from the greenery. Then the guy fumbled out his phone.

Ace was standing over him with the umbrella before he knew what he was doing. The guy too was startled, Ace's already-quiet steps lost among the splash of the rain.

“Oh, thank you,” the guy said, flashing Ace a self-deprecating smile as he held up what he found. It was a beetle, as big as Ace's palm minus the fingers, shiny with a large, victorious horn. “I was just—it's rare to see these wild. I wanted to get a picture for my boss's son.”

Son plus boss plus beetles—Ace hazarded a guess.

“For Luffy?”

The guy's face lit up, and Ace just kind of stared, addled, until the guy released the beetle back and stood up. Like Marco, he was just the bit taller than Ace, and standing quite close under the umbrella.

“You know Luffy?”

“Yeah, I met him at the Christmas party.” Ace's gaze slid repeatedly away from the guy's, and found itself fixed on the uniform name tag. _Sabo_, it read. “Cool kid. We hung out.”

“He's the best, isn't he?” _Sabo_ said happily, finally putting his phone away for safekeeping. “Oh sorry, I'm Sabo. I work in there, obviously, with all the cold-blooded creepy crawlies. Just the reptiles section though.”

“Ace. I work with the sloths.” Still thinking about the beetle and Luffy (the Insectorium was attached to the reptile exhibits' exit, and the two buildings shared an office), Ace added with a shrug, “I like the Reptile House.”

“Yeah?” Sabo's eyebrows lifted in something of a challenge, though he was still smiling politely. “Most of you mammal folks don't come near our corner of the kingdom. What do you like about it?”

“It's,” Ace answered awkwardly, suddenly realizing he couldn't tell the real (pathetic) reason to a perfect stranger without alienating him forever (and for some reason, Ace was very concerned about not alienating this man, this Sabo forever), “drier. Less humid than the sloth exhibit.”

A beat, then Sabo started laughing.

“Our anacondas eat your sloths, y'know.”

Sabo actually reminded Ace a bit of Luffy, what with their propensity to challenge and antagonize. It was a trait Ace found wholly appealing on this stranger, his blond hair darkened and damp with rain.

“And some sloths move so slowly, beetles nest on them,” Ace replied with a chuckle of his own.

“Ah. Extra crunch?”

“Even I know anacondas swallow their prey whole, so stop your spread of fake news.”

Embarrassed by his own uncharacteristic rapaciousness, Ace needed a moment before he could look Sabo in the face again. When he did, Sabo looked... delighted. This was a real smile, Ace realized. The last one hadn't been as ill-fitting as Ace's own presenter smile, particularly when there were only adults around, but it had nonetheless been put-on.

Ace's typical reaction to _happiness_ being directed at him was to run as fast as possible in the other direction. It was achingly weird and uncomfortable. But then Ace thought about Dr. Olvia and what she said about leaning into the uncomfortable.

_It's not about making yourself unhappy Ace,_ she had told him, _it's about figuring out why it makes you uncomfortable._

When someone like Thatch beamed at him for a “thoughtful cup of coffee,” it felt uncomfortable. When a passionate visitor thanked him ardently for “all the great work he's done,” it felt _unbearable_. Marco's quiet smiles were a lot easier to bear, mostly because Marco's happiness felt mostly diffused, warm and present in the air, so that Ace could just breathe it in without having to engage. _Sabo's_ smile—

Sabo's smile had something mean about it, something uncivilized. He had given it to Ace only after a test, and it felt sharp, retractable. It stung, but it also felt _nice_, in the way a clean cut felt nicer than a messy scrape.

“...Where are you headed then? I'll walk you.”

Ace breathed, and leaned into the uncomfortable.

* * *

The first time both Marco and Sabo came to the sloth exhibit for lunch, Ace neglected to introduce them. It was one of his broad assumptions about the world that most people already knew each other, having met in the plethora of times Ace hadn't been present.

_I do know him_, Sabo had confessed, later that afternoon when he passed by Ace's building again, during his docent tour with the bearded lizard. _The birds of prey shows are the talk of the town._

_Yeah but have you ever talked to him?_ Ace had asked, embarrassed by his assumption and wanting to comprehend the full scope of his social faux pas.

_No_, Sabo said with a strange expression, _but he's always seemed... competent._

After the rain, Ace had busied himself with trimming the spoiled buds off the hibiscus bush. The sun had returned with a vengeance, so that first time all three of them had lunch together, it was outside on the steps of the service entrance.

“This wind,” Marco said, grimacing. “It just won't make up its mind, yoi.”

The reason for the complaint had less to do with the fluctuating wind patterns, and more with the fact that the flamingo pond was not far down the way. It was one thing to be downwind and constantly be bombarded with the awful dung smell; they were all zoo employees after all, dung smells were routine. It was another thing entirely to be hit by waves of the scent in unpredictable patterns, mouthfuls of food souring unexpectedly.

“Your birds should like it though, right?” Sabo said, having already set aside his own sandwich for the time being. “There's a good updraft today.”

“Thatch mentioned you requested material to increase the height of the aviary,” Ace brought up, deadheading as quickly as possible. “Are you getting more birds?”

“Possibly,” Marco said in a way that meant _probably not_. “I guess I just want to do right by the ones we already have.”

“I'm surprised Sabo hasn't challenged your eagle to a duel with his snakes,” Ace teased. “He likes to establish dominance like that.”

“Dominance is all about timing,” Sabo protested. “I was just waiting for the right moment.”

“For what? A sneak attack?”

“Boa around the neck? You'll never see it coming.”

Marco gave up on his sandwich too, with a loud crumple of the wax paper wrapping. Ace shot him an apologetic glance.

“I'll be done soon, I swear.”

“Oh no yoi, take your time.” Marco smiled, but it was more diffused than usual. Washed out in the sun. “I just remembered I actually have some extra work to get done. I should actually get going, sorry about that.”

“Oh. Alright.” The last of the rotted buds fell to the ground, red spotted with black. Ace frowned; it was always sad to see the lost potential of a flower never getting to bloom. “Don't overwork yourself.”

“When have I ever?” Marco joked, private understanding comfortable and familiar as Ace waved him off.

Sabo remained seated by the now-bare hibiscus bush, completely silent.

* * *

It was one of the rare times Ace visited Marco in the aviary for lunch, when Sabo texted him the picture.

“Luffy's visiting,” Ace announced excitedly, taking Marco by the arm and dragging him out the door before Marco's even got his protective glove off. “Come on, you've got to meet him!”

Once Ace and Marco got to the Reptile House, there was a lot of excited shouting, tackling, and lifts into the air. Between Ace and Luffy, of course. Marco introduced himself to Luffy with the spirited ease of someone very used to working with hyperactive children, and immediately started fielding questions about his weird giant glove.

“Do you like my new home screen photo then?” Sabo asked from behind Ace, sighing in adoration at his phone. It was, of course, the same picture he had sent to Ace: Luffy with the biggest, toothiest grin in the world, holding a lizard in one hand, a beetle in the other, with a lovely little green boa draped on one shoulder. “Not to be cheesy but wow, educating the youth? Children _are_ our future.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Ace advised, grinning wickedly at Sabo, who looked slightly wide-eyed. “I think Luffy's about to be converted to the raptors.”

“He would never,” Sabo proclaimed, sounding less than sure as he eyed Luffy, who was happily babbling at Marco. “Luffy understands loyalty.”

“Sabo! Sabo!” Choosing that moment to charge up in his light-up sneakers, Luffy was giddily jumping up and down with the sheer energy only a six-year-old could embody. “Marco just told me! He said a bald eagle can kill even a _king cobra_! Is that true? That's true, isn't it!”

“Oh,” Sabo said loudly through gritted teeth, “he said that, did he?”

Just a short distance away, Marco flashed Sabo a cheery thumbs up. The office door opened then, and Dragon, Sabo's boss and Luffy's stern-faced father, stepped out.

“Sir,” Marco immediately greeted, the refined line of his stance translating as easily into professionalism as it did into child-friendliness. Ace found himself transfixed.

“Luffy, if you go put on your boots, I'll take you through the elephant enclosure.” Hooting loudly, Luffy clattered off to the office, leaving Sabo in his wake, mouth still gaping at the ostensible defeat by Marco of _coolest animal wrangler _in Luffy's heart. “Marco, good to see you.”

As Dragon and Marco involved themselves in the low-pitch conversation of long-time colleagues, Ace was, apparently, still staring. Sabo ended up nudging him out of it, a wry smirk on his lips.

“What's on your mind then?”

Ace fumbled for an explanation, even found one that was pretty true.

“Don't you just feel like a kid sometimes, compared to him?”

“Marco?” Sabo glanced over too, with that characteristic sharpness in the tilt of his chin. Ace suddenly wondered how many people got to see the way Sabo liked to bite. “I certainly feel _something_ when I'm compared to him.”

Frowning, “what do you mean?”

“Well there's someone I like a lot, and Marco gets all his attention.”

In the wild, there were typhoons and flash floods and landslides. Adaptable creatures survive the destruction, and become even better suited to outliving the next disaster. Ace has survived disasters before (just barely). This moment felt like another, a potential felling of trees where he could shatter against the ground if he didn't find a better handhold.

Then, Sabo said, “you don't think Luffy really believes eagles are cooler than cobras, do you?”

The trunk creaked dangerously, but did not snap.

“I guess you'll find out at the birds of prey show this afternoon,” Ace smiled. It was a smile meant to defuse (not diffuse; the Reptile House always felt much chillier than the sloth exhibit, even with Marco and his warm smiles there), ill-fitting for the first time in Sabo's presence.

Sabo, inexplicably, looked away with a frown of dismay.

* * *

Ace was all packed up for the day and about to head home, when he saw the glow coming from the aviary.

“Being a workaholic I get,” Monet murmured to Ace when he greeted her in the office. She too, was just leaving. “But this? He's not being smart and he knows it.”

“I do,” Marco admitted, tightening a screw on the new scaffolding Ace assumed he's just put up. The whole thing seemed dangerously off-kilter, leaning against the existing tent. “The deadline was meant to trash my proposal for the expansion, I get that. But if I can get this fresh netting up myself by tomorrow, I can get the money for the rest.”

“But do you have to do it now? In the dark?” Ace argued, feeling the deep chill of anxiety despite the coat he's got on over his uniform. “Why not get an early start tomorrow? I'll even come help.”

“The board meeting is at ten AM tomorrow, and Caesar's gonna try to take care of this as soon as possible.” In the ambient lights scattered about (kept dim, Ace knew, to not disturb the natural circadian rhythms of the nearby raptors), Marco smiled, looking apologetic at _Ace_. “I'll be fine. I've done construction work before, it'll be done before you know it.”

“Then let me—”

“Only got enough scaffolding up to hold one person yoi.” Marco reached out and ruffled Ace's hair, beaming like he was really, _really_ pleased. Ace was too busy contending with the terrible foreboding building up inside him to figure out what that meant. “Really Ace, go home. You'll see it in the morning.”

“We'll see your corpse in the morning, maybe,” came Sabo's voice out the dark, along with a fragrant waft of what smelled like Chinese takeout. “Being pecked clean by your beloved raptors. Who'll be laughing then?”

Somewhere between Luffy discovering how cool eagles were and the next time Ace had lunch with both Sabo and Marco, the two had developed a (mostly) friendly rivalry. It was often amusing, sometimes worrying. On occasion, it even made Ace feel a different sort of worried. The way they looked at each other, eyes full of fire, made Ace simultaneously crave and dread the post-lunch solitude of his workspace.

“Pell told on me?” Marco complained in Sabo's general direction as he tightened his headlamp.

“He just said there was going to be an evening show, free admission.” Sabo tossed out a blanket and smoothed it right there, over the aviary grass. He sat down on sprawling legs and gestured for Ace to join him. “I brought a picnic.”

“Cute date idea, yoi.” In the electric lights, all veins and arteries stood out under the skin. Sabo probably wasn't looking redder than usual. “Well, save some for me if you're gonna watch.”

“When's the last time you saw Ace leave anything uneaten for long, hm? Better hurry if you want even a speck of rice—_ow_, hey!”

Marco got done with the rigging and netting just after midnight, with only one minor slip off the scaffolding that had both Ace and Sabo hopping to their feet, rigid with tension. They hung around the aviary office until one in the morning, chatting quietly alongside the owl hoots, and nobody talked about the full box of fried rice and kung pao that Sabo had already set aside in the microwave for Marco.

* * *

(Ace did ask Marco, days later, for the _real_ reason why he had been so determined to put up the netting that night. Marco answered seriously, like he always did when Ace asked him to.

_Those birds are stuck in captivity for the rest of their lives._ Marco's voice was low and flooded with sadness. _I just want to do right by them._

_They're rescues_, Ace reminded him. _This is already more than they'd have, being showcased and miserable in some rich asshole's private collection. You're already doing so much._

_It never feels enough_, was his solemn reply. _It's not about me yoi. I want them to live their best lives._

Then, out of the blue, _how's Sabo doing?_

_Fine_, Ace answered, frowning and not understanding the change in topic. But he found that he had something to say about Sabo as well. _I get the sense you see him more often than I do these days, to be honest._

_Oh, that's not_—

The alarm reminding him to clock back in rang on Ace's phone, and the conversation was left to hang in the air, awkward and straining between the boughs.)

* * *

There was a huge array of reptiles, squared away in habitats and enclosures behind the scenes that visitors never got to see.

_Everyone wants to see the cool albino ball python_, Sabo had explained to Ace one day, chewing on the inside of his cheek. _Nobody wants to see its scars._

Often, when Ace was visiting, he would see Sabo going about tasks with that albino ball python, wrapped in pink scars and bald patches, draped happily about Sabo's shoulders. Its tail liked to flick back and forth across Sabo's face, and Sabo would laugh, fixing his bangs back over the burn marks over his left eye.

_I won't ask, so don't worry_, Ace had to tell Sabo, early into their friendship, when he realized why Sabo seemed so tense around him sometimes.

_I'll tell you when I'm ready?_ Sabo shot back, so exhausted and embittered.

Ace had taken a deep, shaky breath, and thought about discomfort.

_I won't ask about yours if you don't ask about mine,_ he told Sabo. That declaration left Ace's hands shaking and his blood running cold. It was clear, after all, between the two of them, who had the more helplessly exposed wounds. Sabo wasn't the one with less human friends than countable on one hand. Sabo wasn't the one prone to melancholic bouts of isolation where he locked everybody out but still pleaded for them to come back knocking. Sabo wasn't the one dodging his therapist's phone calls.

Sabo took Ace's hands in his, cupped like they were a frightened animal.

_...I'll tell you when I'm ready_, he had promised then, voice pressed on the verge of _something_, like one or both of them were about to jump into floodwaters.

Now, there was a rainstorm. The arrest of poachers and a smuggling ring, an intercepted package, mishandling and sprinting onto the scene too late. There were dead gator babies, and Sabo had his arms wrapped tight around his torso. The water levels were dangerously high and getting higher still, with every second more Sabo left Ace standing in silence.

“My mother,” Sabo finally said, voice reedy and insubstantial, “was an awful woman.”

He finally glanced over his shoulder, scarred eye first and a quirk of a smile that said, _are you sure you're ready for me? _Ace thought about discomfort, about polite distances, about the chill of the reptiles office without the light press of tropical heat. Then he thought _fuck all that_, braced himself, and grabbed Sabo into a tight, shaking hug.

The hug said, _my scars for yours._ Sabo wrapped his arms tightly back.

“She actually used to call me cold-blooded.” When Sabo laughed, it sounded like his mouth was full of blood. “You cold-blooded child, don't you have any regard for our family? We've given everything to you, and this is how you repay me?”

He buried his face into Ace's shoulder, scar tissue brushing against the skin of Ace's neck.

“House fire. A masterpiece of irony. Everybody but me and mother died. Took me until last year to pull the plug. I still haven't figured out whether I was waiting for her to wake up or punishing her by keeping her alive.”

See this—this tightrope of feeling between loving and hating—this Ace understood. He kept holding onto Sabo, fighting gravity.

“And she's already _dead_, how stupid is it to keep wallowing like this? What does it matter, what came before? Shed it like dead skin and keep going, right? What's dead is dead, it's gonna stay dead, _move on_. So why can't I—”

They plunged into the water, Ace still clutching. A tangle of flesh, the simple animal urge to survive fighting the simple human grief. _If he can't swim, I will,_ Ace thought fervently to himself. It wasn't a matter of strength. It was a matter of care and sanctuary.

When Sabo finally stopped shaking, it would be well past lunch, and Ace would have to sprint back to his post. But the clouds have cleared, and the waters were draining away, barely even getting his socks wet. On the way back, Ace even got his phone out and texted Dr. Olvia before he could wimp out.

_I think I got something to talk about now. Regular time tomorrow?_

* * *

(“Will you give these to Sabo when he gets back from lunch?” Marco asked Hack, the retiree receptionist in charge of affairs in both the Reptile House and Insectorium.

“Wasn't he in his office?” Hack asked in mild surprise as he took the papers. It was food orders for the next month; Marco and Sabo were compiling their respective enclosures' meat needs to save on cost. “I didn't see him leave.”

“No, didn't see anyone in there,” Marco lied, smiling his always-smile. “Must've missed him.”)

* * *

Ace had loved his last job until he didn't. A classic grad student part time endeavor, bartending was fun, flashy, and brought in a ton of cash when Ace did it (particularly when he did it without a shirt). He loved the attention. Then he got used to the attention. Then he dreaded the attention.

The mind was a curious thing. That's how Ace thought about it when he was feeling generous. When he wasn't, he thought, the mind was a fucked up thing. His in particular was a sinkhole for sad feelings, like those specific little eddies that collect every bit of trash and litter from the runoff in a city during a thunderstorm. Like an infested wound, dripping with pus. Like an oil spill. Ace could go on and on, and so could his mind. Every time he managed to talk it through and out, it would only end up coming right back. Like a bad ex. Like a flea infestation.

Bottom line was: Ace could do the sums and see that he's had more bad days than good, that cumulatively, there was little genuine point to his life, his existence, his breaths and purchases and commutes that destroy the earth. He was a net negative, and the least he could do was throw the charred, burnt up end bits of himself toward someone that could use the charcoal. Someone, or somethings.

The morning Ace saw the job posting for _Junior Sloth Habitat Technician_, he went, interviewed, and got the position. He expected it had been out of pity on Clover's part, but that was fine. He left grad school that very same day and never looked back. Ace became a keeper of life that day—not of the sloths, really, but his own. His life had been fully precarious at that point, dangling out the window and hanging by a thread, like rotted curtains clawing towards a tornado. That day, Ace took hold of the tattered tails and gathered it all back in. Folded it up between his palms like a paltry gift, but a gift nonetheless.

It wasn't his anymore, and he would not be sad to part with it. But until it fully disintegrated in his hands...

Well, it would do fine to keep a few orphan baby sloths warm at night.

* * *

“And why,” Dr. Olvia asked, “did you want to tell me about them?”

“I'm curious what you'd make of them, I guess,” Ace muttered into his mug of water.

“What do you make of them?”

What Ace liked about Dr. Olvia was her constantly wry attitude. Like she knew that _he _knew the tricks she was using, but won't he just trust her to walk him through the performance? Today, Ace felt like he could trust her. He'd been the one to text, after all.

“Marco?” Dr. Olvia nodded in acceptance. “I think he's a good guy. He's nice and popular with the guests. He's friends with all the staff.”

“Do you believe that you're not special to him?” When Ace just blinked, she clarified, “you say that he's friends with everybody. Are you thinking that there's a possibility he treats you the same way he treats everybody else? You have mentioned feeling insecure in friendships before.”

“That's honestly never crossed my mind,” Ace replied slowly, thoroughly surprising himself with the answer. “I don't—He's very genuine, you know? Or the best actor in the world, I guess. I know that I _am_ special to him. Or our friendship is, I believe that. Shit, that's arrogant isn't it?”

“That's not arrogant,” Dr. Olvia smiled, “that's progress. How about Sabo?”

“Sabo's one of those guys,” Ace began to say, already helplessly grinning, “who's just a bit weird, y'know? He's funny and nice, but also actually really mean when you talk to him for more than a minute. He's—”

_There's someone I like a lot, and Marco gets all his attention._

“I think I'm special to him too,” came out in a whisper. It felt so wrong, so terribly presumptuous to say these things aloud, but there was an aching in his chest that told him he'd have it just as bad if he didn't say them. If he didn't believe them. “I don't know what to do about it.”

Dr. Olvia considered, sitting thoughtfully across from Ace with her long white hair and distinguished bridge of the nose. Ace had once seen a young woman leave the office just as he was coming in—she had the same nose, the same chin. Briefly, Ace had wondered if that was Dr. Olvia's daughter, but stopped that train of thought because there were no un-rude paths of speculation in Ace's mind for parent-children relationships. There was nothing productive in that endeavor, and he didn't want to think those things, even in passing, about his therapist.

“What would you like to get out of these relationships?” Dr. Olvia finally asked, seeming genuinely curious. Ace supposed, from her perspective, this was quite the change, quite the breakthrough for him. It had come completely out of nowhere too.

(Perhaps from the trees, or from among the underbrush. A three-pronged case of convergent evolution, where out of three natural disasters have emerged creatures of rhyming emotional biology.)

“This is good,” Ace needed to say. “What I have with them is already more than I—” _Deserve. More than I am worth._ He thought about Marco's forearm and Sabo's face, and viciously swallowed down any words that had to do with the value of life. He didn't want to think those things about _them_, so he couldn't think them about himself. Not now. “—I'm very grateful.”

“But?” Dr. Olvia prompted, keen gaze on the furrow in Ace's brow.

“But...” Maybe there was still some fundamental insecurity after all. If they—the three of them, Ace and Marco and Sabo—were a river, Ace thought he would be the meander. A looping divergence from the straight-forward path, he was the one the waters stretched out for. Marco and Sabo felt like the two feet of him, but sooner or later, the oxbow would snap. The water would find its straight-forward path easiest after all and run a clean line again. There was no such thing as a circular river, and Ace would be cut off by necessity, become solitary and stationary once again. “I don't think I'll get to keep this for long.”

Just like the tattered curtains of his life, there was little for him to keep. No big deal.

“Why not?”

“Well they'd make a good couple, wouldn't they? Everything they—”

_Everything they've liked about me, they can find in each other._

Ace could see Dr. Olvia eye the clock, clearly displeased that they didn't have any more time to dive into this particular revelation.

“It's fine!” he rushed to reassure (her or himself?). “I can see what they both want to give, and I can see what they both want to get. They'd fit well together.” Marco's little sentiment came to mind, and Ace thought he got it now, that change in subject. “It's not about me. I want them to live their best lives.”

“I'll see you next week,” Dr. Olvia said, dignified even as she resigned to the time limit. Ace actually found it encouraging, that she thought he could survive another week on his own. The situation clearly wasn't dire, no big deal at all.

“Thanks for today, Doc.”

“One last thing to think about—” Ace lingered by the doorway, and it was the first time in a long while he hasn't felt the urge to just sprint out and away. “—do you suppose the fact that you can see both their vulnerabilities, that they've_ let_ you see... Is that a clue of their intentions toward you?”

* * *

All at once, Marco and Sabo stopped coming to visit. It was jarring. Then it was painful. Then it was just uncomfortable. Ace was quite used to being alone, after all, and all it took was a bit of emotional alchemy to convert the sticky loneliness that saturated the air back into the familiar tepidness of singularity. His lab felt colder than usual.

_Sloth mothers_, he explained one gray morning to a group of undergrads curious about the origin of their orphan sloths, _sometimes suffer from extended cool and rainy weather. Their digestive bacteria stop working, but their slow metabolism keeps them alive. Babies still feed from them, even as the mothers are starving to death. We would only find them when the mothers finally drop from the trees._

Slow metabolism. That was Ace's problem. Slow to ingest and slow to process. So slow that the seasons have changed right out like a carpet from underneath him. So slow that the exhibits have dipped into winter, and Ace hasn't noticed in time to develop a protective winter coat. So slow, that Marco and Sabo have gone ahead.

Ace continued his care of the sloths in his exhibit, pouring heart and soul into every step. All alone in his lab, Ace understood with growing certainty that something inside him has stopped working. His days felt limited again, and pretty soon he'd drop from the trees.

_Everything they've liked about me, they can find in each other._

Weirdly, Ace found himself thinking of his mother. His biological one, not his foster mom. Portgas D. Rouge. In the only photo of her Ace has ever seen, he thought she had a pretty mouth for smiling, but eyes that were too intense to match. She wore a white dress and a red hibiscus in her hair. It was really very incongruous, aesthetically speaking, with the FBI agent that brought him the picture.

“Mom,” Ace whispered, trying it out. He immediately grimaced, the aftertaste bitter. He's never called anybody that—Dadan was Dadan, and the most maternal person he ever knew has always just been _call me Makino_. “Rouge.”

With all his heart, Ace hated the man who left him, his mother, and a load of trouble behind. Gol D. Roger. The FBI agent had also brought an obituary someone put in the papers for him. Ace has never bothered to read it, figuring he owed the man less than nothing.

But with all his soul, Ace ached for the woman who also left him behind. He didn't know if it was the eyes or the smile or the hibiscus, but Ace _felt_ for her. He wanted to stand by her side, the way he did on Marco's father's death anniversary, the way he did for Sabo when the deaths got too much—he wanted to stand by her side and listen to her confess to abandoning her infant son. He wanted to hear her say, _I was the one who gave birth to him. I owe him life._ He wanted to hear her say, _but sometimes, you have to let go of the thing you love the most. _Because_ it's the thing you love the most._

He was shaking, Ace realized, in his loneliness. The baby sloths have finished their swim, glancing about for their usual post-exercise snack.

Ace was empty-handed, because outside, the hibiscus bush sat, pruned completely bare. No flowers, no sun, no water. _Intention_ hardly mattered. Survival looked so ugly sometimes.

* * *

“How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Ace replied automatically, taking the paper bags Thatch pulled off his truck. This was usually where Thatch said some idle remark about past or upcoming events at the zoo, then drove off waving. Instead, Thatch grabbed some of the bags himself, and followed Ace inside. “The usual. How about you?”

“Oh, you know, my brother being an idiot again. Annoying, but nothing new.”

Ace carefully didn't sunflower at news about Marco—it's almost been three full weeks of zero contact. He craved to know, but also knew with certainty the knowing would hurt.

“Oh? What's he done now?” Ace couldn't even bring himself to say the name.

“That's the question, isn't it?” Thatch, when he wasn't exuberant and bright, could be just as gentle and attentive as Marco. He didn't touch, but made it clear with his body language that Ace was welcomed to. Ace didn't, but did his best to relax his shoulders to convey his appreciation. “What's Marco done to you, Ace?”

Ace frowned, setting down the sloth feed for the day on his work counter.

“What do you mean?”

“You've clearly been sad—I don't think I've seen you this down since you first started working here, if you don't mind me saying so.”

“I don't—” Denial felt stilted on his tongue, and this was a constant theme in Ace's life, grappling with external visions of himself that didn't fit with his own internal interpretation. “—mind.”

“He's been taking on all the outside assignments he could get his hands on,” Thatch continued, gaze wandering over Ace's face in a curious survey. “Perks of being a licensed vet, I guess, but something about him's reminding me of his birds right now, clawing at the corners of their enclosure trying to escape.”

“His birds are—?”

“Well, no. That's just a convenient—and _poetic_, ahem—analogy. His birds are perfectly happy, being fed with food and enrichment, have their own clear territories, etc. etc. That's not my point. My point is...” Thatch, all of a sudden, turned to face another corner of the room. “Marco and your guy in the Reptile House, Sabo was it? They might've gotten into a fistfight last night.”

“..._What_?”

“Either that or fight club.” The shock was so much that it took Ace a moment to regain his composure, and then to realize that's precisely what Thatch had allowed him to do by turning away. “All I know is, on my rounds this morning, they've both got marks on their faces and all over their fists. Like goddamn Ikea instructions—place knuckle A into cheekbone B...”

Ace was already on his feet and headed for the door, Thatch following closely behind. It was only when he got to the juncture in the path, one leading to the Reptile House and the other to the aviary, that Ace had to pause, unreasonably frustrated at being stymied like this.

He almost jumped, when Thatch put a hand on his shoulder.

“I got food going to the aviary,” he said, giving Ace the way out. “Tell you what though, once I got space in the truck I'll string up one wayward idiot of a brother and bring him to you, how's that sound?”

Allowing the deep impulse in him to manifest, Ace clapped Thatch into a grateful hug. Thatch reacted with immediate delight, hugging Ace right back with a happy chuckle.

Not that Ace has been going back to Dr. Olvia's—but he thought that if he were to go back this week, at least he could talk about becoming actual friends with Thatch.

“I'll see you soon then,” he promised, pulling away and jogging off toward the Reptile House. The zoo wasn't opened yet, so there were no children and family to dodge around.

“Godspeed!” Thatch called from behind, before starting his truck and driving off.

* * *

“I knew he was gonna tell,” were Sabo's first words to Ace in weeks, his mouth drawn up in a mutinous grimace. Ace ignored him, stepping right into the office without invitation and taking Sabo's face in his hands. There really were marks—but just a small swatch of red and a little bit purple, streaking across Sabo's left cheek. It was hardly a fistfight, if one party only looked like this.

But still, Ace had to check.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” The question was stiff, as was the way Ace scanned Sabo up and down. Just as Thatch promised, there was broken skin across Sabo's right knuckles. Like waking from hibernation, Ace remembered wondering who else knew how much Sabo liked to bite. Well, Marco certainly knew now, if he hadn't before.

“No, not at all.” Obligingly, Sabo held his arms up and turned a smooth circle. When he faced back again, the line of his mouth was strained. “Ace... what are you doing here?”

Hurt, like a shot, seared through Ace's chest. But before he could just turn around and leave, Sabo's grabbed hold of his arm, expression stricken.

“No, I didn't mean it like that.”

Speeding hearts could go one of two ways. First, the appropriate dispersal of blood throughout the body to warm the entire creature, getting muscles thawed and moving again. Second, an irregular panic coagulating blood in the center of mass, leaving extremities cold and unable to cling on. Ace had no idea which path he was headed down, just that heat thrummed in vicious torrents under his skin where Sabo's hand touched.

“I just meant... Thatch is his brother, isn't he? Didn't he tell you about—?” Names, the ones that were more than just labels but tasted like the whole person, were so hard to say when you were full of feeling. “Why are you _here_, and not _there_?”

Sabo's voice held only misery, no jealous triumph, no tentative hope. With a frustrated huff of breath, Ace turned their hands so that he too held Sabo.

“What's going _on_ with you? After we talked that day I figured you wanted space, I didn't want to push. But then days became a week became two weeks, with _nothing_, no word at all—”

“I know, I know and I told him to stop running away, to not leave you alone. I told him he should call—”

“_I'm not talking about Marco_.”

Close up like this, Ace could see both of Sabo's eyes clear behind the hair, behind the scar. Ace could see Sabo standing at crossroads of his very own—could see the moment Sabo gritted his teeth and made his choice.

“But you really should.” How curious, how _fucking stupid_, that Ace could feel Sabo clutch and clutch and clutch at him, right there on his arm, begging him to stay, all the while cool words slipped from Sabo's tongue. “You should go to Marco, he's—He's the one—He's so much more—”

Expelling all his anger in one shove, Ace severed all physical contact between him and Sabo. Sabo couldn't even look up, hair curtaining his face, disappearing into himself like the snake swallowing its own tail.

“I'm guessing this is why he punched you.” Ace swore, voice low and seething. Accusations, tumultuous and ugly, battered him from the inside. He refused all of them entrance into existence. _What would you like to get out of these relationships?_ Ace didn't know, having always been more preoccupied with what he had to give. Therein, perhaps, lied the problem. All of their problems.

Ace took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. He didn't hear the car door slamming shut just outside.

“You're not cold-blooded, Sabo.” Sabo tried to disguise the full-body flinch as some sort of aborted casual motion, but Ace saw right through it. “Not even remotely. In fact, you're one of the most caring people I've ever met. You're not cold, you don't want to be alone, and I won't let you be.”

This was, Ace decided, the pounding heart of panic. What else could explain the cold sweat he could feel down to his boots, the way his knees wanted to collapse? But he _had_ to say this, had to do it for them both.

“All this time—” A peak of Sabo's deep brown eyes from behind the hair when Ace's voice trembled. “—you've been coming to keep me company. Everything you've given me, I only wanted to help in any way I can, but if I've done anything to upset you, to make you angry, I'm sorry—”

“Oh god no, Ace, you didn't—”

“Then _why_—”

“Because it's so _filthy_.” The words left Sabo with a rush of breath, and an expression of such utter disgust directed at himself. “Me. My family, everything I've come from. None of it _leaves_, and you don't deserve—”

“Frankly,” Ace interrupted, “I'm tired of being told what I do or don't deserve.”

Then he held out his hand, cold and shaking.

“Aren't you?”

Sabo's hands came up slowly. One met Ace's, but the other touched Ace's cheek, the point of contact reverent and covetous. Flowers could grow even out of snow, Ace remembered, imagining the hallowed touch of petalflesh to ice.

Then Sabo's gaze suddenly fixed on something over Ace's shoulder—the door—and he tore himself away again.

“Oh, great.”

“Bad timing,” Marco said, coming into the room the minimum amount, with a boot still holding the door open for a quick escape. “Sorry.”

It's been almost three weeks since he's seen Marco last, and Ace thought Marco looked terrible. Underfed, overworked. Sabo's marks looked a lot worse on Marco than Marco's did on Sabo.

“Came to clear the air at my meddling brother's insistence,” Marco continued quietly. He wasn't smiling, but looked as if he thought he ought to be. Ace really hoped he wouldn't try. “It was just a misunderstanding, that's all, between me and Sabo.”

“I told my therapist I thought you two would make a good couple,” Ace suddenly blurted. That did the trick; both Marco and Sabo started, turning to him looking caught-out. “Fistfight or not, I still stand by it. You two get along very well. And it's not like you don't like each other.”

Sabo kind of looked about, seeking Marco's gaze to consult before catching himself, then shifted uncomfortably.

“We're not—”

“Aren't you?” Ace asked quietly.

“The one he likes, Ace,” Marco said, voice devastating in its emotionlessness, “is you.”

There was magic and danger in the naming of things—anybody who's ever been a caretaker to animals could attest. Innumerable things existed in the world, like whales and bacteria and devotion. These things often slipped away without a name, but once spoken into existence, these were the things with the most staying power in humans.

Something has grown and grown inside Ace, something organic and on the verge of blooming. Ace was ready, he discovered, to give a name to it now.

He took hold of Sabo's hand in one of his own, and held the other out in gesture.

“Come here.” His voice sounded just as raw as Marco's eyes looked. “Please? I don't _care_. I've missed you, asshole. Both of you.”

Gratitude felt like the sight of buds unfurling through sepal, and Ace was just so thankful that he could have this—Sabo and Marco gathered close on either side of him, uncertainty pounding in all their chests but every finger still intwined. The air between them was thawing and fragrant with spring. Ace breathed, and leaned in—leaned into the uncomfortable, the painful, the _two_ of them, with their matching wounds and shyly linked hands.

“Can't we just...?”

They could. They did.

* * *

_Epilogue_

“...a breeding program for the conservation center, so that's really cool. It would be about a year here, then once the baby can uh, hang on its own, they'll take it to this new rehabilitation program to release it back into the wild. It was a lot of work, it'll _be_ a lot of work, but I'm thinking it'll all be worth it.”

“That sounds like quite the achievement,” Dr. Olvia complimented, and Ace scratched the back of his head, beaming. “You've truly been doing _very_ well, Ace. Completing long-term projects, mood management, regularly coming to appointments. Fostering intimate relationships.”

Ace's cheeks pinked at the teasing tone in Dr. Olvia's voice. Marco and Sabo had helped him with the networking and the proposals and getting the funds, of course, but Ace knew he had been more than transparent with his feelings whenever those two were brought up.

“How the hell did I get so lucky?” he wondered quietly, thinking about Marco's ever-expanding aviary and the photos he had on his phone of Sabo nuzzling the scarred albino python. They had gone to Marco's for dinner last night, shared a simple but hearty home-cooked meal and cuddled on the couch. Ace's heart had never felt so bright and full of air, all sunshine through wafting lace curtains.

“I bet they're asking themselves the same thing,” Dr. Olvia chuckled.

There were still bad days, of course. Scars flared and hearts balked. When hurting, Ace liked to be alone and Marco liked company and Sabo liked to _stab_, so there were still much for them to work out. The aches brought on by the rain though, Ace found, has gotten less present, more manageable. Floods still happened, but Ace could tread water. Could help his boyfriends (his _boyfriends_) tread, or dive or climb or fly or whatever it was they needed to do. They have all survived their woundings. They've all been strong.

Now, it was just a matter of care and sanctuary.

**Author's Note:**

> The birds of prey shows aren't like, for tricks and performance. They're educational for the audience and enrichment activities for the raptors.
> 
> Was I the only one who missed the memo about Nico _Olvia_, not Olivia? I'm very invested in ficcing her and Robin's relationship with Ace, because hello thematic resonance.
> 
> Speaking of thematic resonance. There is apparently only one kind of mas fic I can write and that's the classic how-long-can-they-pine-for-the-other-two-and-continually-eject-themselves-from-the-happiness-equation plot.
> 
> My [tumblr](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/) as usual, leave a comment, come chat with me! (I'm sublimating my crippling loneliness through fic aksjdflkas)


End file.
